DavidFields

Kinda comes off like a millennial just 'discovered' that nuclear war is a thing.  Boomers and X'ers grew up with that gun to the head basically since birth - "Climate change? Sure if you want to wait around for a century.  Lemme tell you about how mankind can really kill us all in a weekend, son!" 

Well here is Perun's spin - have not watched it all the way through but his track record has been solid:
So the question, I think, is - the UA has solved for offence, but have they solved for all offence?
First off I am not sure how many casualties they have taken in Kherson.  Report of "mass casualties" are likely overblown, or very localized, mainly because the offensive itself it continuing.  Sure the UA is taking casualties but I do not think we are talking the opening of the Somme here.
So what about "prepared defence"?  The Maginot Lines that Russia has been able to throw up all over the place?  Thoughts:
- This war is asymmetric, and has been from day 1.  The UA has access to much, much, better C4ISR, and its logistical lines have never been challenged in any meaningful way by the RA. [Aside: I think it is safe to discuss now; however, the only shot Russia had at winning this war was way back in Feb.  IF the RA had made the main effort of the war Lviv, and to cut off the western support corridor by land - I think we would be in a very different reality.]  Russia has had access to mass, beyond manpower - for which there has been rough parity - the RA has significant advantages in just about every other metric of military mass; tanks, IFVs, guns, EW/support vehicles.  The thing is, the UA advantages once they were given access to western smart-weapon systems (by 'smart' I mean weapon systems that can sustain approaching -1:1 shot to kill ratios through a much better organic TA and lethality designed to offset RA protection) and combined it with the C4ISR asymmetry - they effectively dislocated all that RA mass.  And did it with largely 'light' forces - Phase 1 of this war was mind-blowing, frankly, it was far more that 'Russian's suck'.  In reality the UA managed a hybrid distributed defence along ridiculous frontages that made the RA "suck more" - to the point of failure.
- So building on that asymmetry, over the summer the UA were able to expand their options significantly when they gained more access to deep precision strike capability.  I will say it loud and proud - HIMARS were an absolute game changer.  It gave the UA something akin to ersatz airpower without the bother of airfields and infrastructure.  They have employed this system, along with others, in both deep strike and CAS-like roles - there has been hand wringing over the tank but I would think air power advocates should take note of this as well.  With this capability they did pretty much what they did with SOF and Light infantry in phase 1, but much further and faster - they corroded the entire Russian operational system: logistics, C4ISR, EW and morale, to the point that the RA never were able to regain offensive initiative after the summer in the Donbas.     
- Then we saw the very visible result/end-state of this work in Kharkiv, which appears as much about RA taking insane risks to shore up other areas of the front - they did so because their system is in failure.  Kharkiv was "easy" because of this...slow....until it is not.  Kharkiv is an obscenely fast advance and an RA collapse, it will likely be the blueprint for the course of the rest of this war.
"Ok that was great but what about...?!!"  War is not a fast food industry - quick, cheap and tasty; we have become addicted to quick short wars, followed by an insurgency hangover in the west since 1991.  It is dangerous thinking and we needed a lesson on what a real war looks like - brutal, long and all up in your face.  No more of this video-game warfare nonsense.  You want to get into a peer fight?  This is what you get - except now with nuclear apocalypses hanging overhead.  A lesson both China, and I hope the West walk away with.  We have been sold on the idea that war is an inconvenience - to the point that they are teaching this in some academia circles to future policy workers and government leaders.  Some unpleasantness to get over with and then put the military back into a box and get back to the "real business".  Pinker was, and is wrong - this is the business of humanity, history backs me up on that one.
So back to Ukraine, well the UA is well ahead of force generation estimates, the double operation Kharkiv-Kherson demonstrates this, so I am not sure where they really are at to be honest but "well ahead" is a good place to be.  The next question is "how far behind is the RA?", and how fast is that getting worse? - it is getting worse.  The UA has been very smart, and they learn faster than the RA - I go on about options being a key indicator of how things are going; however, collective learning has to be another.  Both sides in this war are learning, it is that kind of experience, but the side that can learn faster and more broadly has a clear advantage - that would be the UA.  So the UA will likely go back to slow, until the conditions are ready for them to go fast.  As to Kherson, it does not take a military genius to know that fighting with a river to your back is likely the worst position to be in.  We know the RA supply lines are heavily damaged and the troops in those "hardpoints", know it too.  In the end the Maginot fell with a whimper because it was totally dislocated - RA hardpoints in Kherson will likely go the same way - it is the biggest vulnerability of a 'hardpoint', it cannot move.  However before that happens the RA needs to be further corroded until the holes outnumber the metal and, like Kharkiv the whole rotten house collapses.  
"How long can the RTA hold out" - see my para on real war: no freakin idea.  It is not forever, based on how hard the UA is still pushing, they think the RA will fail before the weather changes.  Does Kherson have the only decent RA General and leadership?  Did they stockpile more than we thought?  How bad is the RA system in that area?
We do not know.  But I will put one thing out there - time is on the Ukrainian side, not Russia.  Which is what this is really about - we need to move past that myth.  The UA could sit back and hammer the RA positions with impunity in Kherson.  They could do it during the muddy season and into the winter - they can find, fix and finish target from well outside of RA retaliation capability.  Precision means they do not need an ocean of ammo to do it either - 1000 rounds equals 1000 effective hits, kind of thing.  Russia could not mobilize anything that looks and fights like a real military on the scale they need for years and western resolve should get us well into 2023, particularly once the Dark Winter is over. 
My guess is that Ukraine wants a short war because their people are dying, but they can win a longer one as well.  They are pushing hard and up-close at Kherson because they are assessing it will fail soon.  Ukraine will likely win this thing enough (all war is negotiation) in 2023 - assuming it does not happen sooner - if the current paradigm holds.  If we get a major strategic shift then we would have to re-asses.  How they are going to do it is to likely stick with the same game they have been playing all along - exhaust the RA operational system and then kick it in the walnuts from multiple directions at once.  Watch the RA collapse - meme the hell out of that, document the war crimes the Russians were stupid enough get into and show them to the world, get more western support while Russia and its cronies make quacking noises and write bad fiction, rinse and repeat until one hits the Russian border or someone finally puts a piece of metal into one 70 year old's brain pan and the Russians leave sooner.  It is the winning recipe so far.

Certainly looking forward to volume 2.

The tell will be if the Russians can either reinforce the Kherson salient or if they are able to rotate units out. If neither is possible in any significant way then essentially Russia's best regular army units are stuck in a grinder and offensive capabilities are denuded while Ukraine can decide where else to strike. 
A huge collapse would be great but the current situation seems pretty good from the Ukraine perspective. Winning on maneuver in the east while fixing and destroying with attrition in the west.

What's interesting to me is how much both strategies are designed to subvert the supports that maintain US hegemony and how badly they perform at it:
https://www.pewresearch.org/global/2020/10/06/unfavorable-views-of-china-reach-historic-highs-in-many-countries/
https://www.pewresearch.org/global/2022/06/22/ratings-for-russia-drop-to-record-lows/
The danger for both Russia and China...that's fast becoming the reality...is that they don't provide a model that is more attractive than the US/EU because their aims are simply to install a cruder, more restrictive hegemony for themselves.  Therefore, their interactions with likeminded nations don't turn into countervailing coalitions but simply accommodations based on mutual and typically short term interest. You can see that, not all surprisingly, mostly clearly in their relations with each other.
Perforce, they must act like insurgents on the state scale. They act as spoilers, subvert the order of things, put grit in the machinery and try to inhabit (in China's case) parts of the global economy that allow them to exert control. But this has limits. Western oriented states have resilient systems, they are easy to influence but generally hard to subvert outright. And all the while, the clock ticks for China and Russia given the profound demographic problems they face.
I get your take and in many ways I'm sympathetic to it. But over all, I think the historical record comes down pretty heavily on the side of the socially and economically dynamic nations over the episodic pulses of authoritarian states.
 

Putin clearly got a wholesale deal when he bought the entire German officer Corps. 😬

I doubt Ukraine expected to be exploiting their offensive all the way past Lyman and that, more than unexpected resistance, likely explains their inability to breakthrough in depth that far.

Ok so this is better how?  Are you telling me they picked up on the UA planning a Kharkiv offensive weeks ahead of time...and did sweet FA to stop it?!  Aaand we are back to broken operational military system.  Look I am sure these RU Nat volunteers are true believers and really cagey tough guys; however, if they have been part of this debacle then I am a little less than concerned about them walking out of a phonebooth and becoming a super army.
If they can surprise...they had better start doing it.  If this clown show picks a fight with the EU, it will escalate to NATO and frankly from what I have seen we could cut thru what is left of the RA - RU Nat volunteers included like **** through a short goose in a long weekend.
The references you are making are making it look worse for them.  They saw but were unable to do anything about the UA taking back what is now being reported 6000 sq kms, in a week.  I don't care if these guys are each super-soldiers who can do one handed chin-ups with no hands - their operational level ISR, C2 and logistics suck well beyond repair in the timeframes of this war.  They are going to be living proof that dedication and belief comes second to hot steel in the right place and right time.
And what if they are really in league with the mole people and conduct a sub-terrainian flanking?!  Like I said these a$$hats are well positioned to pull of a nasty insurgency/guerilla war in the LNR-DPR - maybe, if local support holds.  Beyond that they are living in fragmented...and getting more fragmented by the day, military organization.  What is likely to stop the UA at this point...is the UA.  They are going to need to re-set logistical lines and consolidate but so far from what I have seen the RA is not part of this equation.
In reality these clowns have the making of a VEO network that will go underground and make everyone miserable once this thing is over.  Good thing we have about 20 years worth of experience hunting humans in this context.
I gotta be honest, I am really tired of the freakin "boogy man of the week" right now.  We are jumping out of our seats because everything is really dangerous and really scary:
- The Russian Army with all that hardware
- The Black Sea Fleet & the Russian Air Force
- Spetznaz and Wagner clowns
- Russian cruise and hypersonic missiles
- Russian cyber Pearl Harbour 
- Some General Jack-in-the-Box who was a jerk in Syria.
- Russians parked around a nuclear power plant.
- Nukes!!
- the Russian 3rd Corp
- Russian mobilization!! - the other hand coming out.
- Russian escalation dominance.
- RU Nats - whoever the hell they really are
- Ukraine is going to fall
- Ukraine is going to hold on but the war will still be on when my grandkids graduate from college
- Ukraine can't possible take in all this kit and hold on.
- Ukraine can defend but could never pull off an attack
I have to be missing something.  Every week in this war we find something be be scared of, and it has all turned out to be complete and utter BS.  How about we look at the situation, as it unfolded for what it is - a historic military debacle that is likely to break the current Russian regime.  It was doomed from the start, and has only gotten worse.  Sure things could still swing and will likely get uglier but the RA in Ukraine is in death throws - it is keeling over to die, not coiling like a steel spring.  All war is negotiation and right now the Russians are negotiation just how ugly this loss is going to be.
Unless these RU Nats come with an entirely revitalized equipment fleet and logistics backbone to support it, a competitive integrated ISR system, and a completely new military doctrine...you will excuse me if I am not worried.   
 
 

Nope, that’s backwards. The video shows Infantry with a tank supporting them, which is exactly what the tank was originally conceived for!

OMG, did he get the wrong script?  This dude actually said true things.  Holy moly the world is upside down.  No one even interrupted him, which is not normal for this show.  Now all the brainwashed will actually hear, on their own propaganda TV show, that UKR counteroffensive drove RU troops out of Kharkiv region and that there's massive manpower shortage.  Plus he states that mobilization would make economy worse and that there's not enough gear for the soldiers anyway.  He sound like Steve FFS.  

You know,  the reserves that UKR has on hand don't need to be expended on a new front, with all its unknowns and additional logistics work. 
They could instead reinforce or pass through and extend the already successful Kharkiv/Izium offensive,as a second fresh wave. 
Save the initial wave of units, give them a perfectly timed rest,  securing territory acting as a operational reserve., yet keep the offensive going. Then leapfrog the rested units back in and rest the second wave 
That might become far more dangerous, as a push south to east Donetsk could start to cut off the entire RU forces within  Ukraine. 
Kessel the entire lot of 'Em. 

Lets remember, guys, that by all rights Russia should have won the war. They should have corrupted the Ukrainian politicians, exhausted their army, run them out of tanks and artillery shells, aircraft and anti-tank missiles simply by throwing bodies at them until Ukraine had nothing left to shoot them with. The fact that they didn't is testament to the Ukraine people and the nations around the world who stepped up to assist. Russia may be a terrible army, but Ukraine is a terrible opponent to face, as well.

Here's the thing...Xi holds every single card here. Russian gas is badly situated for China's market and years/billions in investment away from being...even then...a pricey alternative to what they have. Russia doesn't have much of anything China wants and is a shrinking percentage of China's foreign trade...especially compared with the US and EU. Russia is also a would be competitor in Central Asia and has differing interests in Southwest Asia, Africa, etc. 
Russia's value to China was as a distraction to and a thorn in the side of the US and the EU. Xi needed the latter to have a big, dangerous security threat that could be activated to disperse their forces. In short, Russia was supposed to be Xi's pitbull. The dog might be still vicious but it's turned out to also be decrepit and the US is, through Ukraine, knocking its teeth out.
So what does Xi do? I think close to nothing. A Russia that is more Austria-Hungary than useful is not worth investing in. China will do the bare minimum to maintain Russia's territorial integrity while asking the world in return in terms of trade deals, diplomatic access to the -stans and ultimately economic control in the Russian Far East. Unequal Treaties can go the other way, in time.

Peter the Great?

Interesting snippets I am getting from RU regarding fighting in Lyman.
Even with drones arty/mortars still have issues hitting moving infantry and especially moving vehicles. Attack drones/loitering munitions can easily hit moving targets, but they lack oomph to really hurt prepared defensive positions.  So, UKR combined them:

UKR troops:
hit RU defensive positions with drone adjusted arty use Switchblades/Warmates to isolate position from reinforcements (especially vehicles) or hit retreating RU troops  I think an infantry platoon needs a strike drone to isolate an enemy position so mortars/arty can pound it to dust.   

Kherson as-is is more of a resource sink for Russia than for Ukraine.  Everybody currently enclosed is going to end up dead or as a prisoner, and it's just a matter of them deciding which they'd rather be, and when.  
In the meantime, Russia has to keep using up supply-chain capability trying (or at least pretending) to support the units penned up there.  Once they're gone, all that capability can go back to supplying what's left of their Donbas positions.  So in some ways it's preferable to let Kherson stew a bit longer, running out the resources that are stockpiled there and using up supply capability (and bridging equipment) to keep supplies moving.  So for now, I'd leave them as a logistics problem for Russia rather than turning them into a logistics problem for Ukraine.  But it's also something of a humanitarian and political question, because there are a bunch of civilians in there, too, and it would be preferable to liberate them quickly.

Yup, I think so too. If they don't surrender and try to run en masse, it has all the potential to turn into true massacre.

Hey, stop this, this thread belong fully to Tolkien nerds!😉
 
Ok, so can we try to assess scale of Ukrainian success now on 11 PM here in Europe, with some buckets of cold water. We have massive happy hours and probably a lot of rumours/ Ukrainian PsyOps, so let's try to stay sober (for a moment)
1.Frontline will probably stabilize on Oskil...or not? Russians are trying to form something resembling defence in the east of the river but have giant problems. Ukrainians are probably very tired and we have only speculations on second wave joining.
2. I read some magical numbers regarding captured POW's and vehicles...like 450+ tanks,7000 POW's and similar. Very unreliable. We don't know how many Russians managed to escape or if kessel is formed (probably not, because of fluid nature of frontlines). Certainly gains at Izyum are truly massive, but we don't know numbers just yet so scale may be little lower than expected (my guess, happy to be proven otherwise).
3. Capture of Yampil is not confirmed, state of Lyman is disputable. Vovchansk and Vielyky Burluk under shelling but probably still not captured; since they are close to Russia they may be reinforced in time (let's hope not).
4. Donbas lines are roughly stable as well, with Russians traditionally pushing towards Bakmut like drunk rhinocero.
5. Oil rafinery areas near Lysychansk is probably contested; something is happening in this axis but still we don't know what.
6. As of now, Donetsk airport, Severdonetsk, big breach in Kherson etc. seem like rumours.
7. Putin is well, Moscow just have celebrations. Nothing suggesting change of power for now.
8. Situation is very dynamic....5 days in and Russians barely try to counterattack. Their "maneuver to regroup in republics" may even be true from RUGenStaff point view...but it somehow mifired.😉 Reality knocks the door.
9. Russian nationalists have butthurt of the century, one can feel their pain and tears throuht the screen.
10. Ukrainain morale sky high, at least in the north. If not death of queen Elizabeth headlines would be full of info about Ukraine for 24/h. Apparently international attention span is not short when for hours describing such vital issues as names of Royal corgies or tapestry of new King's seat while barely mentioning that Ukrainians just gave us most brilliant example of massive manouvre world have seen from WWII (ok, Desert Strom not counts).
 
Now, throw knived at me but I would call to curb our enthusiasm now. It is glorious day indeed, but there are so many rumours and fake stories that we easily can fall into high expectations trap.
 

Colonel-general Oleksandr Syrskyi comanded of this operation. Also he commanded the defense of Kyiv
 
 

Everyone remembers how Red Storm Rising ended, right?

I came down to computer today to see 181 posts overnight.  My oh my what a busy day in Ukraine.  3000 sq km, major cities, main supply hub.
RU 'regrouping' forces -- into POW camps.  The ammo & vehicle haul is going to be insane.
I love the smell of collapse in morning.  Smells like victory.  Congratulations to all those in Ukraine.  And congrats to all those in surrounding countries who would've been in Putin's sights if he had prevailed in Ukraine. 
It's not over, a long way to go, but this is what we've all been dreaming about. 
Just last week famous US TV vatnik lectured that Russian was winning, obviously.  He's been a Putin mouthpiece since the beginning.  I wonder what he'll be saying now.

It is really interesting from an operational surprise point of view.  How the UA managed to do operational surprise in this day and age - even given the poorer RA systems - is beyond me.  I am wondering if they went lighter for reasons of lower profile and logistics load?
Well I guess things will become clearer in time.  Let's face it, we are going to spend years unpacking what actually happened in this war.  

I am a pretty big fan of testing out that theory.

Site I go to published this today in summary of latest in the war:
"And really, this offensive is truly possible to all those Territorial Defense Force units stuck in trenches up and down the front for the past six months, getting slammed daily, oftentimes feeling abandoned. Their impossible heroism allowed Ukraines regular army units and 300,000 reserves to prepare in the country’s west, while Western allies equipped and trained them in proper war fighting techniques."
While we're feeling good about progress it's good to remember who's months of suffering and deaths made this possible. 
 

...Ukraine on a LEASH tied to...ugly, lazy wording